1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to an anchor pretensioner structure for cars and, more particularly, to an anchor pretensioner structure for cars, which prevents a passenger from tripping on the anchor pretensioner structure when the passenger gets into a rear seat of a 3-door or 2-door car.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, car seat belts are primary safety devices for a driver and passengers and are required by law to be mounted in cars.
Such seat belts are intended to restrain the motion of the body of a driver and a passenger in order to reduce injuries when a car suffers an impact. However, seat belts that are too tight or loose make the injuries more severe, which is a problem in need of a solution.
To solve this problem, a pretensioner is provided in a retractor that constitutes the seat belt. In the normal operation, the pretensioner serves to both smoothly wind the belt that is pulled to fit the wearer's body, and upon an accident to forcedly and quickly wind the belt to reduce the wearer's injuries.
When getting into a rear seat of a 3-door or 2-door car, a passenger first has to push or fold a front seat forward and then get in the car. However, when doing so, because the entrance space is narrow, he/she often trips on an anchor pretensioner of the seat belt which is mounted in the front seat. This involves the danger of the occurrence of a safety accident, and accordingly may cause the manufacturer to become involved in a legal suit for product liability due to passenger injuries.
FIG. 1 schematically shows the cause of a passenger tripping.
In order to get into the rear seat of the 3-door or 2-door car, a passenger first folds a front seat 1 forward and then enters a space between the rear side 3 of a door panel and the front seat 1.
As indicated by the solid line, if the part of a protector 2 of an anchor pretensioner protrudes by a great amount from the rear side 3 of the door panel, the mounting angle at which a hook section of the belt is inserted into and fastened to the protector becomes small, which can reduce a sub marine phenomenon whereby upon a collision, the passenger comes out from under the seat belt. However, if the protector 2 protrudes to an excessive degree, the possibility of the rear passenger tripping also increases.
However, if the protector 2 is made to protrude by a smaller distance, the possibility of tripping becomes lower but the mounting angle of the seat belt increases correspondingly, thereby increasing the possibility of a sub marine occurring and having a negative influence on safety.
To solve this problem, the anchor pretensioner can be designed to be moved downwards, but this is a new design added to the structure of a car body, so that investment costs taken to study the new design such as re-analyzing the structural strength or the like, re-establishing a test platform, or the like are heavy.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.